Facials in Spring Hill, TN

SPRING HILL, Tenn. (WKRN) – The city of Spring Hill’s Fire Department has been awarded the ‘SAFER’ Grant, putting $3.1 million towards hiring additional staff.

In the town of Spring Hill, things often run smoothly and quietly, but it takes just one second for things to change gears.

“So a typical day is pretty busy for us,” said one firefighter, describing the calls they respond to on any normal day. “The very seldom structure fire, car wrecks, fire alarms, mostly medical calls.”

The calls never stop, which is why now is the perfect time for recruitment to reach new heights.

“The city of Spring Hill is growing leaps and bounds; that’s not a hidden fact, and the fire department has to match that growth with the growth of population, industry, houses, etc. Our call volume increases and as our call volume increases, we need more apparatus on the street to cover those calls,” said Spring Hill Fire Chief Graig Temple.

However, who will cover all of those calls? It’s a question the department started asking some time ago.

“[The] Spring Hill Fire Department identified several years ago that our staffing was not meeting the national standard which is,” Temple said.

The goal of the fire department is to always respond, no matter what. They continue to make it work, even without a full staff.

“Firefighters are much more efficient in a group of four, and that’s what we’ve been operating under. We’ve been having three firefighters on every apparatus, so the fourth firefighter provides safety, both for the firefighters when they are on the scene of a structure fire or an emergency,” he explained. “It also allows us to be more efficient when we arrive, get our hose lines in faster…we can rescue people faster; it just makes the entire operation run much more smoother.”

Now, in a turn of events, help is on the way for the fire department.

The purpose of the SAFER Grant Program is to provide funding directly to fire departments to assist in increasing the number of firefighters to help communities meet industry minimum standards and attain 24-hour staffing to provide adequate protection from fire and fire-related hazards, and to fulfill traditional missions of fire departments.

The struggles of the Spring Hill Fire Department have not gone without notice of those in Spring Hill City Hall. Wanting to fill a need, Mayor Jim Hagaman wanted to lend a hand.

“Sometimes those departments need a little bit more cash inflow and last year, we the board, mayor, and alderman put together a resolution to ask the fire department to apply for a grant, and just last month it was awarded to the tune of $3.1 million,” said Hagaman.

On Monday, Oct. 2, the Spring Hill Board of Mayor and Aldermen approved Resolution 23-200 to accept the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) Grant, awarded by the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA).

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“When you call 911 and you need fire and rescue, the more personal and the more apparatus that we have to respond to those calls, and the faster that happens, is certainly better, because seconds matter in a crucial situation,” he said.

The $3.1 million grant will cover all pay and benefits for 13 newly hired firefighters during the operational period. This is projected to cover the current staffing deficit within the department.

General Motors employs more than 5,000 people in the Spring Hill area. It has helped Tennessee become a car manufacturing giant and been credited for much of the Maury County area's boom.

NASHVILLE, TENN. (WTVF) — General Motors employs more than 5,000 people in the Spring Hill area. It has helped Tennessee become a car manufacturing giant and been credited for much of the Maury County area's boom.

This week NewsChannel 5's Rebecca Schleicher spoke with GM President of Global Markets Rory Harvey out of Detroit about the company's future. His past role was the company's President of North America.

The big local project on the horizon is the Ultium electric battery plantto service GM that is set to open in Spring Hill by the end of March. But it comes after a few months of delays.

"Like everything we went through last year, there was a little bit of volatility in the EV market, for example. So therefore we did a stop, breathe and refocus of everything," Harvey explained after the plant did not meet the initial production deadline for late 2023.

The plant is currently hiring and will employ an additional 1,000 to 2,000 people.

The company's car manufacturing plant is currently producing the electric Cadillac Lyriq. Which GM is touting as one of the company's major successes of 2023.

"If you look to the Lyriq, December was its strongest month since launch and if you look to the month of January we're having a time this month as well," Harvey said. "The Lyriq is being very well received by customers."

Schleicher noted "you mentioned a bit of a softening in the market, and we just had a huge winter blast with EV drivers learning that batteries don’t do so great in that really extreme cold. Plus sales seem to have slowed recently for EVs. Does that worry you at all?"

Harvey said the key is the flexibility of the company to respond to current demand, whatever that is.

"I would say no it doesn’t (bother me). General Motors is in a strong position in terms of the fact that we have combustion engine vehicles in our portfolio and we have electric vehicles in our portfolio, so we’re able to flex dependent on customer demand."

"If you look to Spring Hill as an example," he continued "it makes the XT5 the XT6 which are internal combustion engines and it also makes the Cadillac Lyriq."

Industry insiders expect a record-breaking 10 percent penetration for electric vehicles this year, after a highest-ever 7 percent in 2023.

In an investor call Tuesday, GM CEO Mary Barra said the company plans to produce between 200,000 and 300,000 electric vehicles in 2024. And Harvey confirmed GM is still on track for all of its light duty vehicles to be electric by 2035.

The recent United Auto Workers Union walkout and strike set GM back 95,000 vehicles, Barra said. Members eventually agreed to a deal that dramatically raised pay and offered cost-of-living adjustments.

"We have challenged the organization in terms of the areas that we're going to make the savings," Harvey said.

Local UAW President John Rutherford said in a phone call this week that employees are generally happy with the results and believe the future for GM is bright in Middle Tennessee.

Harvey said investing in people is critical.

"We should send a big thank you to all of the employees because they were key to all of the 2023 results," Harvey said. "Spring Hill is our largest complex in the US, so it is significant."

But this week, GM execs said they have to do better and earn back public trust in wake of the Cruise Robotaxi crash, where a pedestrian was dragged some 20 feet when the self-driving vehicle did not emergency stop.

Schleicher asked Harvey about it.

"A lot of us saw them (Cruises) around the Nashville area being tested pretty frequently before they were pulled off the streets. In the investor call execs said there would be a new 'road map' for the Cruise. What does that mean?"

"It basically means we had an incident...and that’s an opportunity for us to look at the business overall," he continued "we are still going to invest significantly in terms of Cruise through calendar year 2024, but we need to learn the lessons, we need to build relationships and then we need to accelerate."

The crash rocked the entire autonomous vehicle market, with safety as a top concern.

"Personally I don’t think people should be worried about safety," Harvey said. "If you look at it there is plenty of data out there that is from independent third parties that the safety of autonomous vehicles specifically in comparison to regular individuals driving vehicles."

Barra said there is a sense of urgency to fix both screen and software issues.

GM staff in Spring Hill say both the manufacturing plant and the new battery plant are currently hiring.

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Workers at the Spring Hill General Motors plant won't join the strike this week as negotiations continue between three auto manufacturers and the national United Auto Workers union.

However, parts distribution centers for GM have been called to walk out, affecting centers in Memphis and dozens of other parts centers in the U.S., following a Friday address by UAW President Shawn Fain.

Earlier this week, a Spring Hill GM plant strike was much-speculated after a reported 13,000 autoworkers of the union's 150,000 members took up signs, officially walking out of GM, Ford and Stellantis plants in three states — Ohio, Michigan and Missouri.

More than 3,000 United Auto Workers members are employed at the Spring Hill plant.

The core issues of concern to workers are pay and cost of living increases.

Fain addressed more than 50,000 people Friday morning on a Facebook Live event. Ford, he said, has made positive efforts at the negotiating table, but Stellantis and GM continue to play hardball.

Fain called on all parts distribution facilities — 38 factories between GM and Stellantis — to walk out. While that doesn't include the Spring Hill plant, it does include one in Memphis that employs about 200 employees.

"Stellantis and GM are going to need some serious pushing," he said. "Both of those companies have rejected all of our job security proposals. Both GM and Stellantis have rejected our profit sharing proposals, and both companies have rejected our proposals to convert temps."

During his talk, Fain addressed the Spring Hill plant, saying workers are still prepared to strike if more negotiation demands aren't reached.

Earlier this week, UAW spokesperson Brian Costantino said workers in Spring Hill are "fired up" and "fed up."

Since that time, all eyes have been on Spring Hill's GM plant, the largest in North America, and whether it would also join the "Stand Up Strike" for better wages and opportunities for employees.

The UAW strike has been anticipated as potentially the largest strike in the union's history, with its most recent company-wide walkout occurring in 2019.

The 11-million-square-foot Spring Hill GM plant, which opened in 1990 on 2,100 acres, builds SUV models, including Cadillac models XT5, XT6, and the all-electric LYRIQ, powered by Ultium Cells batteries, and the GMC Acadia.

The United Autoworkers have been striking at select Big Three Automaker plants for the last three weeks. They've kept everyone in the dark about which plants are next, including their own workers.

SPRING HILL, Tenn. (WTVF) — It's technically still business as usual at the GM Plant in Spring Hill, even if it doesn't feel that way.

"There’s a lot of discussions that’s happening up north in the negotiations and really that’s where that focus needs to be," said Anton Busuttil, Plant Manager of the Spring Hill plant.

The United Autoworkers have been striking at select Big Three Automaker plants for the last three weeks. As a part of their strategy, they've kept everyone in the dark about which plants are next — including their own workers.

"It’s tense every Friday, right? Because we just don’t know what’s going to happen," said John Rutherford, the UAW Local 1853 President, during an interview with NewsChannel 5 last week.

Rutherford says even though Spring Hill hasn't been invited to the picket line yet, they stand willing and able.

"We’re not in the business to bankrupt the company. If they’re not making money, we’re not making money right? So times are very well, very good after bankruptcy. It looks like a much brighter future so we’re trying to get back some of what we lost," he said.

Of course, Busuttil argues that GM has already offered up a good deal to UAW.

"We’ve put out our most generous offer we’ve ever put out for the UAW, and what’s on the table right now are historic wage gains, job security focus, maintaining the great healthcare that we provide for our employees," said Busuttil. "Quite honestly, if we don’t reinvest in the company, we won’t have the future that we would all desire."

Whether or not Spring hill is selected to strike next, the plant could still eventually send workers home. As UAW grows the strike, if Spring Hill's part manufacturers are taken offline, GM may be forced to furlough workers in the mid-state.

"There’s some work stoppages — that would be inevitable that we would have to stop production," said Busuttil.

Perhaps the one thing both respective leaders can agree on is that they're longing for the day they can truly get back to business as usual.

"If we were called upon to have a strike, we would have to pause operations," said Busuttil.

"We don’t want to strike, but if we have to, we have to," said Rutherford.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, Department of Economic and Community Development Commissioner Stuart C. McWhorter and Armada Nutrition LLC officials announced today the company will invest $5 million to expand production in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

The leading contract manufacturer will create 50 new jobs in Maury County to support the company’s increased demand in nutraceuticals.

Armada Nutrition LLC is a subsidiary of Nagase & Co., Ltd., which is based in Japan. Armada Nutrition specializes in manufacturing high quality nutritional powders for national and global nutrition brands. Today, the company develops, processes and packages its multi-ingredient powder solutions from its sole location in Spring Hill.

Since 2020, TNECD has supported nearly 15 economic development projects in Maury County, resulting in approximately 3,400 job commitments and $4.8 billion in capital investment.

QUOTES “I thank Armada Nutrition for its commitment to creating 50 new jobs for families in Spring Hill and Maury County. The exceptional workforce across this region will greatly benefit from these highly skilled positions, and we look forward to seeing the success that follows this expansion.” – Gov. Bill Lee

“We are proud to have Armada Nutrition in Tennessee. This is a company that develops, processes and packages its goods globally from its sole location in Maury County, and we hope to continue supporting this great brand to ensure its continued growth in the future.” – TNECD Commissioner Stuart C. McWhorter

“At Armada Nutrition, we’re passionate about delivering high-quality nutritional products that empower people to live healthier lives. This expansion signifies our dedication to continuous innovation and meeting the growing demand for premium nutritional solutions. But this investment isn’t just about expanding our capacity, it’s about investing in people. Creating 50 new jobs with excellent career opportunities brings us immense pride. We’re confident this expansion will further solidify Armada Nutrition’s role as a major economic partner in Spring Hill and beyond.” – Josh Lanagan, president, Armada Nutrition

“TVA and Middle Tennessee Electric congratulate Armada Nutrition on its decision to expand operations in Maury County. Supporting companies in the creation of new jobs and investment in the Tennessee Valley region is fundamental to TVA’s mission of service and we are proud to partner with the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development, Middle Tennessee Electric, Middle Tennessee Industrial Development Association, and Maury Alliance in that mission as we celebrate this announcement together.” – John Bradley, TVA senior vice president of economic development

“Today’s announcement by Armada Nutrition is great news for Maury County. The expansion of their operations in Spring Hill not only signifies economic growth but also underscores our commitment to fostering innovation and job creation. With 50 new jobs and a $5 million investment, this move showcases our region’s appeal as a hub for cutting edge manufacturing. We welcome this expansion and look forward to the continued success of Armada Nutrition.” – Sen. Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald)

“Armada Nutrition is a valuable member of Spring Hill’s business community. I was excited to learn of their expansion, which is going to create dozens of new jobs in Maury County. It’s a great thing when thriving businesses grow, and I’m proud Armada Nutrition is continuing to invest in our area.” – Rep. Scott Cepicky (R-Culleoka)

About the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development’s mission is to develop strategies that help make Tennessee the No. 1 location in the Southeast for high quality jobs. To grow and strengthen Tennessee, the department seeks to attract new corporate investment to the state and works with Tennessee companies to facilitate expansion and economic growth. Find us on the web: tnecd.com. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Like us on Facebook. Subscribe to our YouTubechannel.